Chapter 2
New York
One year later
“Avery, if you have a moment, the magazine would like to get a few more photos for your interview.”
“Okay. Thank you, Rachel.” From within the small throng of art critics and collectors circled around me, I nod at the publicist who’s been hired to help me navigate tonight’s invitation-only reception. “Will you all excuse me, please?”
Slipping away, I follow her through the thick, buzzing crowd that fills the newly opened modern art gallery at one of the city’s most prestigious private universities. The high-ceilinged, open-concept space is packed, vibrating with energy. Soft music plays from the string quartet set up near the open cocktail bar. Mingled conversations swell from all directions, punctuated here and there by the soft clink of crystal glasses.
And on the soaring white walls that surround the gathering, paintings from contemporary masters hang alongside works from promising new talents and Avant-garde outsiders, most of whom are in attendance tonight.
It’s hard to believe I’m actually a guest at this elegant event, let alone that I’m here because one of my pieces has been acquired for the university’s collection.
“Ms. Ross, can you tell us what you’re working on now?” The question comes at me from somewhere to my right, accompanied by a hand holding a cell phone camera in my face. Rachel is there in an instant, smoothly deflecting for me.
“Ken, you’ll have to wait to find out, just like everyone else.” Smiling at the disappointed reporter, she steers me away from him. “How are you holding up tonight?”
“Good. I’m having a great time.”
“It’s okay, you can be honest with me. You hate all the attention, don’t you?” She winks at me as we walk. “After the price your most recent painting commanded, you should be getting used to it. Everyone wants a piece of you now.”
I try to ignore the shudder that rakes me at the thought of being the focus of so much curiosity. I spent most of my life hiding from my past and the monsters who inhabited it, so I can’t imagine a time when I’ll ever be comfortable standing in the spotlight. Thankfully, none of these people here tonight can see inside me to the terrified, damaged child I once was or the many ugly secrets I had to keep in order to survive.
Only one person glimpsed deep enough to really see me, and for the past year I’ve been doing my damnedest to forget him. Not that it’s been easy.
For the short handful of months we were together, Dominic Baine had consumed me. He had been my everything—or so I’d foolishly believed. In reality, Nick had been playing me for a fool from the moment I first met him.
No, I remind myself harshly. He had been playing me even longer than that.
From the time he saw one of my paintings hanging in his gallery, Dominion, nearly two years ago now and decided he had to have me. But the joke was on him, wasn’t it?
He didn’t realize I was damaged goods.
He didn’t know about the secrets I had been keeping all my life. The abuse and the shame, the obfuscation.
The blood and the death.
I wish I could take some satisfaction in how I deceived him too. When I think about how I hid my past from him, how I allowed him to risk his own life to protect me when that horrid past eventually came to collect on my debts, all I taste is regret.
I wish I could take it back. I wish I could reset the clock and start over.
That was the reason Nick had taken me to Paris—to reset the clock. Or so he claimed.
With my sins all bared to him and no more secrets to stand in our way, I thought Paris would be a new beginning. And it was. I just had no idea we’d be starting over apart.
I didn’t want to believe it was over, but I couldn’t stay.
Not after what he did, systematically manipulating me, controlling every detail of my life as if I were nothing but a pawn being moved around on his chessboard, until he had me right where he wanted me.
Conquered.
Owned.
His.
Worst of all, Nick played me so masterfully, I fell completely, helplessly—stupidly—in love with him.
When it all fell apart in Paris last summer, I thought the pain would kill me. How it didn’t, I have no idea.
Throwing myself into my work has helped.
Moving out of Manhattan has helped too. The 1940s townhouse I bought in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens two months ago could not be more different from the towering glamour of the Park Place building where I spent so much time with Nick.
It’s hard to go anywhere in the city and not think of him, not be bombarded with unwanted memories of all the places we explored together. All of the dark, erotic pleasures we shared.
Ancient history.
I push thoughts of him to the back of my mind as Rachel leads me over to the waiting photographer from the art magazine and the woman who interviewed me earlier tonight. They position me in front of my painting and as the camera clicks away I do my best to look like the confident, coolly unaffected artist they all seem to expect.
“Thank you again for your time, Avery.” The reporter walks over and shakes my hand after the photos are taken. “We’re planning a series of artist spotlights later this year. In addition to featuring your work, we’d like to talk to you more in depth about some of your influences, your early life, things that have shaped your remarkable work. If you’re interested, we’d love to add you to the program.”
“Oh. Um . . .”
“Of course,” Rachel interjects. “She’d be happy to participate.”
The two women exchange contact information and make arrangements to talk next week about scheduling for the article.
“That really wasn’t necessary,” I tell Rachel once we’re alone.
“Yes, it really was.” She purses her lips and looks at me over the rims of her tortoise-shell glasses. “Kathryn hired me to take care of you tonight because she couldn’t be here. She’d never forgive me if I let a great opportunity like that slip through your fingers.”
I nod begrudgingly. Kathryn Tremont has become a dear friend this past year. She also happens to be one of the wealthiest women in New York and a force to be reckoned with in the art world. As much as I dislike accepting favors or being managed, I know Kathryn is only trying to help me because she cares.
And Rachel is only trying to do her job.
Her phone chimes with an incoming call. “Sorry, I have to take this. Don’t forget, the dean will be inviting you and the other artists up on stage to say a few words before his closing remarks.”
I nod, but she’s already pivoted away, immersed in conversation on her phone.
I spend an awkward minute standing by myself in front of my painting, wishing I had friends with me at the reception. Not that I’m completely alone. In addition to Rachel, my date is here somewhere, too, although I don’t see Brandon’s ginger curls and ruddy cheeks among the sea of attendees. I shift on my high-heeled sandals, arms crossed over the front of my black Valentino cocktail dress as I crane my neck to scan the crowded gallery.
How long has he been gone, anyway? It seems like an hour since he left to fetch drinks for us. As much as Brandon likes to chat, it wouldn’t surprise me if he hasn’t even made it to the bar yet. God knows I could use a dash of liquid courage before I’m due on the stage.
Since I have a few moments to myself, I figure I’ll go in search of my erstwhile date or an adult beverage, whichever I locate first. Just as I step into the cluster of party guests, a wall of firm, warm muscle seems to materialize in front of me.
We collide only briefly, my palm splaying against an unbuttoned, bespoke black suit jacket and the crisp white shirt beneath it. Heat sears me on contact, as if my senses recognize the danger even before my brain can engage. I glance up into sharp cerulean blue eyes that still hold the power to strip me to the bone.
“Nick.”
My voice is too quiet, rough with the shock of seeing him for the first time since Paris.
New York is immense, but to think we’ve gone a year in and out of the same city without running into each other must be some kind of miracle. A blessing, as far as I’m concerned. Of course, I’ve done my best to avoid him, staying away from the places I know he frequents, making sure the chances of our paths crossing are next to nil.
Now this.
Even though I understood there would come a time when our paths would likely cross again, the sight of him is as powerful as a physical blow. That crown of thick, raven-dark hair that gleams under the soft gallery lights overhead. That strong, straight nose and impossibly square jaw, as sharp as a blade and shadowed with the rough beginnings of his beard.
And, most devastating of all, those sinfully lush lips that have been on every inch of my body, and have whispered such dirty, wonderful things to me before I realized everything he said was based on a lie.
He stares down at me, his gaze intense but unreadable from beneath inky black brows. “Hello, Avery.”
As surprised as I am to find him standing in front of me, I know my narrowed glare is ripe with suspicion, if not blatant accusation. All justified, considering how disastrously things ended between us. “What are you doing here, Nick?”
“I received an invitation, like everyone else.”
That sinfully deep voice vibrates along my nerve endings, generating unwanted heat and an awareness I don’t care to acknowledge. I edge backward, craving space. If I had any less pride, I’d be tempted to bolt for the nearest exit.
But I have every right to be here. It’s Nick who’s the interloper.
“I suppose you didn’t know I’d be here too.”
“Actually, I didn’t. Lily made the arrangements. For some reason, she neglected to mention the guest list of attending artists. I’ll be taking the matter up with her in the morning.”
He doesn’t sound pleased with his assistant, and I have to wonder if the impeccably efficient Lily Fontana could have lost some of her edge the past year. I doubt it, but I can’t imagine why she’d think putting Nick and me within a city block of each other was anything but a bad idea.
“I apologize, Avery. If I had known you’d be here, I promise you, I wouldn’t have come.”
God, he really means that. It’s hard to deny his earnestness. For all his past deceptions, I recognize his honesty now. I’m not sure why I don’t feel more relief, some sense of satisfaction that he can at least acknowledge the wreckage that lies between us.
Instead, all I feel as we stand together for the first time in so long is the racing beat of my heart. The streaks of uninvited, unwanted awareness. The dull ache of regret over everything that might have been.
Nick’s gaze takes a while to leave mine. When it does, his eyes flick past my shoulder to the painting hanging on the wall behind me. He moves toward it, studying the canvas. My breath lodges in the center of my chest as I watch him take in the large abstract depiction of silvery feathers, turbulent blue water, and flame-filled orange sky.
He swivels his head toward me, a flicker of surprise in his expression. “Icarus.”
The painting is more than the myth, and we both know it. I acknowledge with a nod.
He hasn’t seen it before, even though I first began working on this piece soon after we took our first getaway together. Our Florida Keys sail aboard Nick’s beautiful boat, Icarus, seems like a hundred years ago now. So much has happened since then. So many lies between us, so much pain.
“I’ve been carrying it around with me for the past year. I figured it was finally time to let go.”
Time to let us go. I don’t have to say the words out loud. Nick’s gaze holds mine, penetrating and intense, still powerful enough to cleave me wide open if I’m not careful. But I am careful. I have to be, especially with him.
It’s been a year since I spoke to him—since I’ve been close enough to feel the warmth of his body and breathe in the spicy, intoxicating scent of him, which even now seems to trip all of my senses. A year since I’ve known Nick’s touch, yet I feel the memory of it as if I had been in his arms only yesterday.
I don’t want the memories anymore. He can’t possibly know how hard I’ve worked to move past them, to get on with my life after he shattered my heart with his betrayal.
But he does know.
I can see that knowledge in every nuance of his handsome face. I see a hundred questions in his eyes, a hundred things we both should have said in Paris. Things we need to say to each other now, but probably never will.
“You look good, Avery.” He studies me as he speaks, and I’m not sure if it’s surprise or disappointment I hear in his subdued tone. “I’m happy for all your success. The gallery showings, the accolades from the press and critics. The six-figure acquisition of your last painting. Congratulations, by the way. You’re headed for even bigger things, I have no doubt. I’m impressed.”
And I’m astonished. I can’t deny that his praise affects me, but I’m more taken aback to hear that he’s aware of everything that’s happened with my career this past year. Evidently, he’s been paying attention.
I’d be lying to myself to pretend I haven’t been curious about him too. Not that he’s made it easy to ferret out even the smallest information since we’ve been apart. Nick’s reputation for privacy in his personal life is almost as notable as his staggering net worth. The “shadow mogul” has been practically invisible the past year. Not a single photo in the media, not a hint of gossip in the society pages or the Internet.
In the absence of facts, I indulged in countless spiteful fantasies about him. Imagining Nick haggard and despondent, with an overgrown, unkempt beard and midsection paunch. Reveling in the idea that he might be suffering as profoundly as I had after I returned home from Paris alone, an inconsolable, shredded mess.
But Nick has never looked better. Still flawlessly fit, devastatingly gorgeous. And he’s staring at me as if he can see every imperfection in me, every fissure in my carefully constructed facade. As if I’m still the heartbroken, foolish woman he treated like his plaything.
The woman he once claimed he loved.
“Are you happy, Avery?”
“Happy?” The question catches me off guard, another of his specialties. I force a smile and a nonchalant shrug. “As you pointed out yourself, things have never been better.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
A scoff erupts out of me before I can hold it back. “The way I recall it, you’re the one owing the answers, not me.”
“You’re right.” He grunts, sounding almost contrite. “You didn’t seem ready for anything I had to say then. Are you now?”
“You’re a little late, Nick. None of it matters anymore.”
“Would it have then?”
“No.”
It’s the truth, even though I’ve told myself he should have at least tried. He should have come after me that day in Paris or any of the hundreds that followed. Some pathetic part of me had been certain he’d come after me. Dominic Baine isn’t one to let something that belongs to him slip through his fingers.
He should have forced me to listen. Regardless of my capacity to forgive him, he should have explained why he chose me to manipulate the way he did.
But he did none of those things.
He let me go.
He watched me walk out the door of his flat and out of his life, and in all this time he never even attempted to bring me back.
That alone was answer enough for me.
It still is.
I step back from him, a retreat his keen gaze doesn’t miss. “It’s been nice seeing you, Nick.” The lie sounds as tight as my smile feels when I look at him. “Enjoy the rest of the reception.”
I hold out my hand the way I would to any other acquaintance or colleague. He takes it, but there is nothing casual about the way his fingers close around mine.
His grasp is firm and hot and certain. He holds my hand like a lover. Like a man who remembers as well as I do how often I’ve placed my trust in him and allowed him to lead me into every sensual place he wanted us to explore. After all the months we’ve been apart, he touches me like a man who’s very much aware that he knows me better than anyone before him, or since.
His thumb brushes over the back of my hand. “Ready to run away from me already again?”
“I’m not running anywhere.” I pull out of his loosened hold. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been gone for a long time, Nick. I’ve moved on.”
“Have you?”
The question has an edge of challenge to it that makes me bristle. “What do you want from me? Don’t you have anything better to do than trying to make me squirm?”
A world of meaning churns in his gaze, all of it dark and sensual. Arrogantly so. As intimate as a caress. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Avery.”
“Good. Because I’m not going to do this with you. Not now. Not here.”
“Then let’s go somewhere else.”
The suggestion makes me gape. “Leave with you? You can’t be serious.”
But he is. Dominic Baine offers nothing without careful deliberation. And when he sees something he wants, he pursues it with singular determination. I should know. That’s how I ended up in his bed in the first place.
“I want you to go now, Nick.”
I glance away from him because I have to. Because if I don’t, I might be tempted to forget that this reception is important to me. And because if I stare any longer into those searing blue eyes, I might be tempted to forget about the fact that I came here with another man.
A good, decent man who’s been nothing but kind to me in the two weeks we’ve been dating. I spot Brandon in the crowd finally. He’s slowly making his way toward me, glasses of champagne in hand as he pauses here and there to converse and laugh with his colleagues from the university.
“Please, Nick. Just . . . go.”
He follows my gaze into the throng, where Brandon now heads our way. Something dark flickers across Nick’s face when he glances back at me. “Does he know about us?”
“No.”
The denial feels like a betrayal of its own, despite the fact that Brandon and I have only been dating a short while. I haven’t confided in him about anything, least of all the months I spent in Nick’s bed. As for the rest of our history together, I have no intention of sharing that with Brandon or anyone else. There’s only one man who knows every secret and jagged facet of me and he’s staring at me now with a look that’s intimate and raw, seeing through me in the way he has from the very beginning.
As unsettling as Nick’s scrutiny of me is, by the time Brandon arrives, his expression is shuttered into one of schooled indifference.
“Here you are!” Brandon grins as he hands me one of the flutes. “I’ve been looking for you for the past ten minutes. Sorry to keep you waiting on the bubbly. I ran into the dean at the bar and he started showing me pictures of his grandkids.”
“It’s all right,” I murmur, taking the sweaty glass and watching as Brandon’s attention flits to Nick. “Brandon, have you met Dominic Baine?”
“No, I haven’t had the pleasure.” He thrusts out his hand, pumping Nick’s enthusiastically. “Brandon Snyder, sir. Art History department. It’s wonderful to meet you, Mr. Baine. My colleagues and I are very grateful for your generous contributions to our fine institution over the years.”
Nick’s contributions. No wonder he was invited to the reception. I smile and sip my champagne as Brandon continues to effuse over Nick and the donations he’s made to various departments of the university.
Before I realize it, I’ve drained my glass. Brandon notices it too. Chuckling, he draws me under his arm. “Better take it easy on the bubbly, sweetheart. You need to be on stage for your speech in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be fine.” I can’t keep from looking at Nick as Brandon presses a kiss to my temple. It’s a tender, yet possessive, move that shouldn’t bother me, yet all I can feel is the measuring heat of Nick’s gaze as he watches us together.
“We should head that way,” Brandon reminds me. “Dean Witherspoon told me he’d like to say hello to you before everyone else starts gathering for his closing remarks.”
“All right.”
“If you’ll excuse us,” Brandon says, extending his hand to Nick once more. “Really great to meet you, sir. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to steal my girl for a few minutes.”
Nick merely grunts in response.
He doesn’t look at me, but I burn under the intensity of his silence as Brandon places his hand at the small of my spine and leads me away.